“I don’t have to slow him down,” Showalter said. “He did ask me, ‘When’s that intraquad game?’ I said, ‘You are not in the intrasquad game.’

“I’m just going to trust him right now. I trust him, period, but with something like this, no reason to get ahead of ourselves. I know exactly what, not to an at-bat, but I have a pretty good idea of what he’s going to need. He knows it better than I do. He may think he needs four weeks of at-bats, and there’s always ways to get at-bats.”

The Orioles might play an intrasquad game March 30 after the final exhibition game.

Pitchers threw live batting practice today, most of them without the protective screen. Vladimir Guerrero hit a sharp grounder up the middle that missed Koji Uehara.

“I felt great,” he said. “Today, it felt like everything came together for the first time. I felt like I was in sync. The ball was coming out good. I’ve been focusing a lot on my changeup, and my changeup was really good, as well. I’m happy with the way things went today.”